Luke 24, this is going to be our scripture text. And we're going to read through verse 35. Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men to be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. But Peter arose and ran to the tomb, stooping down. And stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened. Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to the village called Emmaus. which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him. And he said to them, What kind of conversation is this, that you have with one another as you walk, and are sad? Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things which happened there in these days? And he said to them, What things? So they said to him, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people, how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us. When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. Then he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow apart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and he indicated that he would have gone farther. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. and he went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass, as he sat at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road, and while he opened the Scriptures to us? So they rose up that very hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven, and those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread." When I worked at Chapel Library in Pensacola, Florida, I used to have an office that was outside. We had run out of space in the main building, so we had converted a shed and it had double doors on it that I would swing open in the spring and the fall to enjoy the weather. My youngest at the time, Jessica, was a year and a half old. She was 18 months old. She would often spend the day with Dad. I'd be working and she'd be sitting at my feet. One particular day, Linda brought her down and had taken the baby, Bree, to the store with her. Jessica was not happy. She wanted to go with Linda to the store. But she soon fell to playing and forgot all about it. I was working and she would come up to me and babble some nonsensical thing and I would just kind of shake my head. That was usually enough for her just to acknowledge her presence. She'd go back to her playing and I'd go back to my web page. On this particular day though, She knew to stay close to the shed. She would always play very close there. She never would go very far away. But on this particular day, she came up to me in the usual fashion and said something like, blah, blah, blah, mommy. And then, blah, blah, blah, home. Blah, blah, blah, bye-bye. And I just, bye-bye. And I went back to work. She went back to play. Just a few moments passed, and I realized she wasn't there. I called out for her, she didn't answer. I called again, still no answer. I got up, stepped outside, and she was nowhere to be seen. My view was blocked by the building, so I walked quickly back and looked around behind. She wasn't there. I went to the main building that sat right next to mine to see if perhaps she had wandered into that building. She wasn't there. No one had seen her. Fear gripped my heart, and I thought of all the terrible things that might have happened I ran outside calling for her. I ran down to the ditch that lay behind the ministry's property. Everyone in the place was searching for her. I was completely panicked. When I did not find her where I thought she would be, I really felt quite helpless and alone. But you see, things were not as I imagined them to be. We did find her. The alligators had not eaten her. No passing car had run over her or worse snatched her. No evil at all had befallen her. She had wanted to go with Mommy to the store. A moment's reflection at the time would have given me the clue I needed to find her. Blah, blah, blah. Home. She had walked with me to work many times and knew her way. When I said bye-bye, she immediately left for home. She walked around the building to the front, crossed two streets, walked two blocks, went up to a locked door, knocked on the house door, and when no one answered, she sat down on the porch and waited. She's a year and a half old. I thought all was lost. I could only see the blackness and the darkness on that bright sunny day, but the situation was very, very different than what I could see. C.H. Spurgeon, commenting on a similar passage to the one we have open to us today, had this to say. A sorrow is nonetheless sharp because it is founded upon a mistake. Jacob mourned very bitterly for Joseph, though his darling was not torn in pieces, but on the way to be lord over all Egypt. Yet, while there is of necessity so much well-founded sorrow in the world, it is a pity that one unnecessary pain should be endured, and endured by those who have the best possible grounds for joy. The case in the text before us is a typical one. Thousands are at this day mourning and weeping, who ought to be rejoicing. O the mass of needless grief! Unbelief works for the father of lies in this matter, and works misery out of falsehood among those who are not in truth the children of sadness, but heirs of light and joy. Rise, faith, and with thy light chase away this darkness. My sorrow that day was real, but it was completely unfounded. When we come to this passage, I can imagine that the disciples of Christ were in a similar state of mind. with one difference. In the midst of the turmoil I felt, I still had hope of finding her. They did not. Everything in their world had crashed in upon them. All the hopes of the last three years had ended. They thought all was lost, but on the contrary, a great victory had been won right before their eyes. They had missed the most monumental battle in the history of the universe. It had played out in front of them. They had witnessed it in the awful scenes of blood and suffering. They had missed the triumph in the sadness. They had seen the bruised heel, but had missed the crushed head. They had seen the suffering and dying Lord, our Savior, but had missed the risen and triumphant Lord. His crown of thorns was purchasing for them an incorruptible crown of glory, but all they had seen was a crown of mockery. They missed that by His stripes they were to be healed, that those hours of darkness were swallowing up for them an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness, that every drop of that precious blood was crying out with a voice that shook the very heavens, and it was speaking better things than that of Abel. They did not know that the mocking and the scorn was going to give way to the worship of that great day when every knee would bow and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. They were sad because what they thought they saw was defeat and ruin. when in fact what they had seen was the defeat and ruin of sin, of death, and of hell. The blackness and darkness that man for sin was plunged into in the garden was forever overcome, forever swallowed up in victory. They were witnesses of the salvation of God, and they were sad. The text tells us that they had heard that Christ was risen, but that it seemed to them as idle tales. It tells us that they had set out from Jerusalem toward Emmaus and that they were sad. It tells us that it was on this road that Jesus met them, that in their state they did not recognize Him. It tells us of the rebuke and how He opened the scriptures to them. We then learn that they returned rejoicing along the same road that previously they had sorrowed upon. that when the women came and reported that they had spoken with an angel, it seemed to the disciples as idle tales. It is remarkable how men that had sat at the feet of Jesus, who had been told of this on numerous occasions, could think that now it was idle tales, literally nonsense. They had seen the dumb speak, the blind see. They had witnessed the dead raised to life again. They had heard Christ say, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. that their sorrow was blinding their eyes. They saw him die, and what they saw was their only reality. Are we not sometimes guilty of the same thing? We have had remarkable answers to prayer. We have been blessed in the secret place, have known His gracious hand leading us. We can look back on our lives and see the hand of providence guiding our every step. But often, like the disciples, when faced with a new trouble, a new sadness, a new perplexity, We find ourselves in unbelief and doubt. We find that even in the face of promises fulfilled to us, we doubt and despair. It is just here that we need Christ to meet us, as He did these two on the road to Emmaus. The name of only one of the disciples is given us. There are many opinions about who this Cleopas might have been, but there seems to be no real consensus. There is just not enough of a scripture footprint for us to know for sure. This may actually be the only time he is mentioned in scripture. At best he may be mentioned as the father of James, but I really cannot say why his name is mentioned. But in any event, he was not a prominent Christian and not one the Holy Spirit thought it important that we know anything about save his name. His unnamed companion is unknown to us as well. Some think that perhaps it was Luke, but in both cases we are left with only the one name. And there is debate about whether he was ever mentioned again in Scripture. They were unimportant as far as we are concerned, but not to our Lord. He met them there. They were going to a place that history had forgotten, but Christ met them there. They were in unbelief and despair, but Christ met them. They were not at the tomb. They were not even staying in Jerusalem. They were not seeking Him. But he sought them. He found them. He engaged them. He taught them. He delivered them from their fears and sadness and sent them on their way, rejoicing, just as he had for so many before and just as he still does to this day. May we not take encouragement from the fact that Christ sought them out when they were not seeking him. The great shepherd had been smitten. The sheep were scattered. But we find the gentle Jesus now gathering his flock again. Emmaus, like these two travelers, is also shrouded in obscurity. I couldn't find anything notable about the place other than that it may have contained hot baths. There is no consensus as to its actual location, though Luke's Gospel tells us that it was seven miles from Jerusalem. It doesn't tell us which direction, just seven miles. I did find one interesting entry in Hitchcock's Bible Dictionary. It's a dictionary of Bible names and their meanings. Beside the word Emmaus is simply people despised or obscure. I looked through my other sources and even spent some time at Pastor Brain's office looking through his books, and I could only find one other entry that was similar to that. I don't know how or where this particular meaning was attached to the name, but I thought it bears mentioning just the same. For it is true that when we, his sheep, and the people of his pasture are despised, when we are rejected, Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and it is just there on the road to obscurity, and even scorn in the eyes of the world, it is just there that Christ often meets His people. It is just there that He opens up to them in new ways from His Word the unsearchable riches of Christ, and makes the veil of tears that we travel bright with the sunshine of His love. Let us then go to Emmaus. Let us not shrink from traveling that road with joy, knowing that it will be along that that Christ will meet with us. As they walked, Christ found them sad and dejected, confused and perplexed, even despairing. With hopes of that glorious ministry of Christ now seemingly dashed, they were leaving Jerusalem, turning their back on it all and leaving. They were running away, perhaps in fear and shame or fear of persecution. Were they going back to where they were before or what they were before? Or perhaps they were just trying to clear their heads. We are not told for sure. But we see from the text that as soon as they fully understood what their error was, they returned immediately. They were on that road because of what they thought. If it had not been so, their course would not have been so immediately altered. They were on that road in unbelief. We know that when he found them they were sad. For he asked them, What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk, and are sad? Can you not see them plodding along on their way as they discussed all that had happened? They were discussing the things that had happened, but it did not change their course. The report they had been given that morning by the women seemed to them to be nonsense, and they were walking away from Jerusalem. I can just imagine how they must have looked as they went along the road. A profound sadness had gripped their hearts. The one that they thought was the Christ was dead, and with him died all their hopes. We sometimes feel that way, do we not? We sometimes, like the psalmist in Psalm 77, wonder where God has gone. We can say with Him, Will the Lord cast off forever, and will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? We can walk with them through this valley. We are often faced with disappointments and perplexities in this life. And if we have not yet been shaken to our core, we almost certainly will be one day. Perhaps sickness will draw its gloomy shades over our eyes, or friends will leave us. Perhaps we will look at the world around us raging against the prince of life, or reeling to and fro like a drunken man, seeming confusion all around, and wonder what will become of us. What will be our response? Where will we go for help? The answer is before us. As these men were made to look to Jesus, so should we look to Him. Theodore Monod, in his little book, Looking Unto Jesus, had this to say, Looking unto Jesus, and not at the obstacles which meet us in our path. As soon as we stop to consider them, they amaze us, they confuse us, they overwhelm us. Incapable as we are of understanding either the reason why they are permitted or the means by which we may overcome them, The apostle began to sink as soon as he turned to look at the waves tossed by the storm. It was while he was looking at Jesus that he walked on the waters as on a rock. The more difficult our task, the more terrifying our temptation, the more essential it is that we look only at Jesus. These men, as they walked along this country road, had looked away and could now see only the waves. But they did not see things as they really were. The text tells us that they were hoping or had hoped. They had hoped he would have redeemed Israel. They had hoped he would muster an army and push back the forces of Roman occupation. That he would bring back the glory of Israel. But he had done something far greater in redeeming their souls and they did not understand. They had set their sights too low. His was a work far more glorious and wider by an unfathomable degree than they could imagine, and it was in this miserable condition that the Lord met them and lifted their eyes up from the earth and set them on heaven. He made them to look on himself. They had hoped. They had a set of expectations that were not met. What they needed was a new set of expectations. They had hoped to see such and such a thing happen in such and such a way, when this did not happen. Does Isaiah not tell us, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord? For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. We would do well to trust him when he says that he is working all things according to his will, and that that will is to do us good always. No matter how it looks from our standpoint, it is good. Good, because it is of God. They had hoped in their own ideas of who Christ was and what He had come to do, and those ideas turned out to be wrong. Now He comes and restores their hope. O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. He comes to them now in love and admonishes them for not seeing what He has already told them time and again. But He does not simply love or rebuke. and leave, he takes them by the hand and leads them through the scriptures. The remedy for their melancholy and doubt was not in them. He did not bid them look inward. That is what they were already doing to some degree, and it was not helping. He did not attempt to stir their emotions. They had already been stirred to the breaking point. It was not an emotional appeal that he gave. although emotions certainly entered in. No, rather, he spoke to their minds by opening up the scriptures and setting them to thinking aright. He opened up the scriptures about himself and expounded them himself. He began to battle for their minds and, in the process, won their hearts. Jesus opened the scriptures to them. They were disciples of Jesus. They had just been through the best seminary education the world has ever known. In John 14 we have a glimpse into the fact that Christ had already told them much of what He was now going to remind them. It says, These things I have spoken to you, while being present with you. But the Helper, or the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard me say to you, I am going away and coming back to you. If you love me, you would rejoice, because I said I am going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe." They had a knowledge of these things already. but they lacked understanding and were blinded by their circumstance. So here he comes and finds them, and finding them, begins to remind them what the scriptures said concerning himself. How slowly they must have walked on the way, stopping over and over to hear some wonderful explanation. Beginning where the first Adam lost all blessing and goodness, he might have taken them to Genesis 3.15, where the sadness and defeat and the misery of sin was just dawning upon the heart and the mind of man. There, God stepped in and promised, I will put enmity between you, speaking to the serpent, and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, but you shall bruise his heel. He might have proceeded to Micah 5, which tells us, But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me, the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." Or maybe it might have been Daniel chapter 9 that told of the time of his birth. For those hours he opened up and expounded one scripture after another that spoke of his coming, his life, his death, his glory. But when he got to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." When he got there, how they must have shouted for joy. I can just imagine how their hearts must have risen with each passing footstep. Could it be? Could it be? It is. It must be. First sadness, then wonder. then a glimmer of hope, now joy, then overflowing joy and gladness. He was opening their minds to the Word of God, and their eyes were being trained to discern in what they had just seen, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ the Savior. They were now beginning to really see what had happened, but they were seeing it from a totally new perspective, a heavenly perspective. The best knowledge comes from an encounter with Christ and His Word. I used to read a lot. My time is much more limited now, though I still enjoy reading immensely. I read a lot of old books, books by men that walked with God. I have gleaned many good things from them, and I would encourage you to read them, too, if you don't already. We hear sermons, and all this is very good, but nothing compares to a first-hand knowledge of God in the Word. When we go through the deep waters and Christ gives us a comforting word, a rebuke, When He teaches us that something we've been doing is sin, or gives comfort in some heavy trial, when we get deeper and more profound views into Christ's person and work, how much more do the Scriptures then come alive to us? Passages that seem to be dull or even unimportant to us suddenly leap off the page and glisten in the light that they flood into our needy souls. We will not be moved from what we learned there. We can be moved from second-hand knowledge, for as soon as someone else comes along with a better argument, or is more eloquent, or has a better way, we're persuaded. But when God the Holy Ghost is the teacher, then this is different. Then we have it for ourselves, and no one can take it from us. Let us go to the Bible, seeking to find Him there. Seeking to have our minds open to it, and our hearts affected by it. For when we meet Christ on those pages, we will never be the same. I believe it was Spurgeon, but I'm not entirely sure of the source. I believe it was him who told the story of a man that met him at the door of the church one evening and told him that he had read his Bible so many times in his life. I can't remember if it was a hundred or some crazy number. He was boasting in the fact that he had read his Bible this many times. But he had a very unchristian-like spirit. He was very critical in his spirit. Spurgeon's response to him was, how many times has your Bible read you? And I like that. I think that's a good thing to think about. We read many times just the words on the page. They do not think in. They do not engage the mind or enter the understanding. It is no wonder that we are so easily discouraged and cast down. We need to come at that book with a purpose, to meet with God. Not to just check off that we have read in them, but to meet Him. They met him that day on the road, but not in the way that you might think. It was not his presence physically, walking with them, that made their hearts burn within them. For they knew not that it was Jesus. It was a meeting by the Spirit and the Word. On a side note, when Christ would have gone further, they constrained him to stay. Again, not because it was Christ, but because he had done them so much good in edifying conversation. How much do we love the company of the saints? Do we find in that company conversation like this? Conversation that sets Christ before us? That makes our hearts burn within us for the joy of the gospel? He was constrained to stay with them, and in the breaking of bread revealed himself to them and vanished. Vanished? Does it not seem odd to you that he just vanished away? When I pondered that, I wondered that the text did not say that they were sad again. Here they have been talking with Jesus for the better part of an afternoon of the glorious truths about Himself. Then they find they have been with Him indeed and He is gone. Why did He go so suddenly? Do you remember Mary in the garden when she did not recognize Him and He told her not to touch Him? I think we see in both these instances, and then again in the gathering of the eleven later in the same chapter, the fact that Christ was showing them that it was not His bodily presence that was going to do. He was leaving. But He was leaving them with something better. Something better than Jesus Christ walking in their midst. Yes, better. And I can say so on good authority, for He said so Himself. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send Him to you. He has given us the Spirit and His Word. We see in Mary almost a desperation. Mary is essentially telling him that now that I have found you, I will never let you go. You will never again leave my side. Christ was saying to her, no, I will ascend. You will have to live by faith. I am leaving. You must not cling to me so. Do not touch me, Mary, for I go to my father. He vanishes from the view of the disciples for the same reason. They had not known that it was him and it did not matter. for it was by faith that they believed the things concerning himself. Their recognition of him was certainly a boasting of their faith, but not the source of it. He had told them, I will leave you a comforter, I will leave you a guide, a teacher, and he will teach you all things. I will abide in you, and you will abide in me. I will not leave you alone. I will never forsake you. The disciples on the way met Jesus, but it was in his word and we can still meet Jesus in the same way. Again, going back to what Jesus said in John 14, These things have I spoken to you, while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Have we not all fought at times that if only we could touch, or see, or talk face to face with Jesus, It would change things. This would certainly be a great encouragement to us at the time. Our hearts would thrill, and even do now thrill, at the thought of that great day when we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. But this is not the way now. Just as they had to learn to see Christ in the Scriptures, so do we today. As they would have to learn to live in the comforting power of the Spirit by faith, so do we today. This account on the road to Emmaus serves to teach us the same lesson. It was the scriptures concerning Christ that changed their outlook. It is the scriptures that will change ours. They rejoiced after He left them. They did not need His bodily presence. They only needed to see Him by faith. And then to see the world through the eyes of faith in the risen Christ. Christ said, Blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed. The end of it all. was great joy. They worshipped God like the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts. They went on their way rejoicing, because now they understood what they had read, or in this case, what they had seen. This great joy now filled their hearts and quickened their steps. How they must have verily skipped and jumped as they returned. How quickly they did return, for it tells us that they covered the same ground that very night. Joy and gladness feeding them as they went. What a change! Nothing really, just their minds. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. When we think of the disciples after the resurrection, cowering and hiding, despondent, unbelieving, it is an amazing transformation to that of the early Church, bold in its witness and unafraid, even in the face of awful persecution. It was a transformation wrought by the power of the Spirit through the Word in the hearts of those who believed. It is a transformation that we too can know. In the face of an uncertain future, when we are afraid, when we are perplexed and in doubt, we can go to the Bible and know that God will meet us there. I told you at the beginning of my search for Jessie. I had a great longing for her safety that day. I wanted to see her safe. And I would have given, at that moment, my very life to see her safe again. How much more do you suppose Christ longs for and has compassion on us when we, through ignorance and unbelief, lose our way. The Great Shepherd leaves the ninety and nine and goes in search of his lost ones. If you are one of those today, do not despair. He is still finding his people on that road and encouraging them today. As I looked at this text, I had originally thought to speak chiefly on the fact that things are rarely what they appear to us to be. And this is certainly here, and we have alluded to that. I also thought to speak about what a true sight of Christ would do for us. That, too, we have hinted about. For in seeing Him, their course was reversed, their fears banished, their hearts warmed, and their hands were strengthened. I thought to talk about the battle for the mind, for that is the primary battlefield of the Christian life. Does not Isaiah 26 say, that I will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in thee? And Romans 12 too, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. These two men on the road to Emmaus were on a country road. And I thought to speak of that as well. It is a quiet place. They had left the bustle of the city. It was alive with talk of what had just happened. They, like us, needed the quiet so that they could hear the voice of Jesus. We have many, many inputs vying for our attention. TV, radio, internet. It's just an endless, constant barrage of information. Our work, our friends, our family. They all demand we pay attention. And to what? Even the best of this is not to be compared to the richness of a visit from Christ. We really need to find the quiet place. I know that many of you are like me in that it is very difficult to find it. In my house, there are no empty spaces. There just aren't any. If I want quiet, I have to go outside, or I have to get up before everybody else, or I have to stay up later than everybody else. But we need to find a quiet place. Turn off the iPod. Turn off the phone. Turn off and unplug yourself, and get quiet before God, and you will not be disappointed. I thought a lot about a lot of these things, but the one thing, the one thought that rose to the surface and confronted my own soul more than any other was this. He is found in his word. An old divine once said, There are depths in the ocean, I am told, which no tempest ever stirs. They are beyond the reach of all storms, which sweep and agitate the surface of the sea. There are heights in the blue sky above to which no cloud ever ascends, where no tempest ever rages, where all is perpetual sunshine and nought exists to disturb the deep serene. Each of these is an emblem of the soul which Jesus visits, to whom he speaks peace, whose fear he dispels, and whose lamp of hope he trends. Let it be so with us. Let us be so much in the Word, so much with Christ, that we know as well and walk in the peace that passes understanding that Paul spoke of and walked in. Let us find those depths and soar to those heights that are waiting for us in this marvelous book, this book of books. Let us not rest until we can say, Did not our hearts burn within us while he walked with us in the way?